Talk:William Webb Ellis

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William Webb Ellis is roundly known as the "inventor" as they say, of the game of rugby union. There is alot of speculation about the incident of Webb Ellis running with the ball. It can neither be proven or denied. However if Matthew Bloxams letter to the meteor is authentic then i believe that there should be no doubt about it. WEBB ELLIS CREATED RUGBY. - anon

Er.. except that Bloxam never witnessed said incident and nor did anyone else as far as anyone can tell. Bloxam only releated someone (an unknown person) else telling him the story. Jooler

use of the term "incorrectly" in starting statement

It is improper to state this as although there is evidence against the claim that he invented rugby it is wrong to state that we know for sure that he didn't. I therefore reccomend that this is removed and more emphasis be placed on the evidence for and against and allow the readers to decide. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.86.111.53 (talk) 17:23, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

controversy section

This whole para needs a rewrite. The one and only source for the Webb Ellis story is Bloxam and his report of an event that he did not witness is so vague as to be next to useless. Any reference to caid is pure speculation. Who are these "some people" anyway? Also with regard to the second para in this section, it is beyond question that the rules of the Rugby game changed regularly with with each intake of boys. The masters did not control the game it was the boys game. Perhaps a good analogy is the game British Bulldog. Most kids in British schools have played the game (or at least they did in my day) but no one has ever seen a set of rules written down and now and again you might introduce a different rule. Jooler 12:59, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree - the whole reference to ancient Gaelic or Brythonic 'sports' sounds like the typical Celticist's romantic BS fantasy to me and there is not a single reference that links the game played at Rugby many centuries after the English had stomped on all things Welsh or Irish in their country to the sports once played in the Celtic fringe. Get some decent citations or get rid of this nonsense. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.146.165.121 (talk) 22:39, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

By most accounts...

By most accounts, Webb Ellis picked ran with the ball in his arms during a football match against Bigside in the latter half of 1823. - there is only one account, Bloxam's. Any other "account" is once more just guesswork. The 1895 investigation found no other witness to the incident. I don't know what year Bloxam was referring to though. Is there a source for the date of 1823? Jooler 13:07, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Later: I see that it is mentioned here -http://www.pshortell.demon.co.uk/rugby/ch3.htm

hacking

The intro currently says that soccer was considered ungentlemanly. I suspect the intention is to say that hacking was considered ungentlemanly. --Ettrig (talk) 08:54, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Date of death

Hello and sorry for my bad english. I've been at his grave 2 weeks ago. The date of his death is given there as Feb 24th 1872 (as one can see here: File:Menton BW 2011-06-06 18-32-33.JPG). What is the right date? --Berthold Werner (talk) 15:07, 22 June 2011 (UTC)

Having looked at [1] you appear to be right, and the previous date didn't have any reference, so I've altered it. G-13114 (talk) 15:17, 12 May 2024 (UTC)

Cambridge connection?

Another version is that Rugby Football was developed by a couple of boys who had been present at the Webb Ellis incident, and then passed into Cambridge. One afternoon the two undergraduates were just messing about with a ball, and decided to mimic the incident. Other people joined in, and they all found they'd discovered a good game. 86.178.157.135 (talk) 03:03, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Parentage

The footnote questions the conventional account of Webb Ellis's father; but the Army List for 1810 (for which you can find a rather slow but complete download here) shows that James Ellis acquired a lieutenant's commission in the 3rd Dragoon Guards in September 1809, and near-contemporary references (available on Google Books) confirm that Anne Ellis, his widow, was awarded a military pension on 1st July 1812 "in consideration of his having been killed in Action near Albuera"; not "at" the battle, as the footnote correctly observes, but "near" the place... and a little further Googling reveals that it was in a skirmish on 1st July 1811, six weeks after the battle. Since this is "original research", I don't want to add it to the page directly, but there you go! AJN (talk) 23:26, 3 April 2013 (UTC)

Occam's razor

'Do not multiply the factors more times than is necessary.' Meaning to say, the simplest explanation is the one that is most likely correct. Which is more likely: the old codger Bloxam fabricates an elaborate tale about how rugby football was originated some 50 years prior, by some random dude that could have been Joe Blow as far as he or anyone else was concerned, who went to that school at that time. Except he says 1824, and Ellis no longer attended after 1823, and Bloxam, after going to such lengths to fabricate this story doesn't even bother to double check to make sure hes got his years correct.

OR. He actually did hear the story as he stated he heard it, from some person decades earlier, which had been, for some stretch of time, been a local legend of sorts, spread by word of mouth. There was nothing about Ellis that was otherwise noteworthy, so it makes no logical sense that such a story would be concocted about a nonnotable person if it had no basis of a real event whatsoever. Furthermore, the locals at the time had no CRYSTALBALL, and did not know that rugby football would become a global sport in its own right, so ..WHY would anyone have bothered to document in writing this local anecdote about how the local version of football began when this particular nonnotable person who attended there in such and such year picked up the ball and ran with it? this is not the kind of thing that typically makes one think, 'BY JOVE, I think that a half century from now this will be a matter of significant national and global interest! I must document his at once!'

As for the 1895 investigation.... You are trying to find witnesses of a particular SCHOOL BOYS' FOOTBALL GAME, SEVENTY-TWO years later, by which time any such witnesses that aren't already dead will be around 85 to 90 years in age. 'No witnesses were found.' REALLY. Ya THINK? Smh.

Pity it is that no Englishman is capable of being neutral on these kinds of matters. The result being that nearly every Englishman that's not from Rugby will be have made up his mind that the legend is pure fiction, logic be dammed. And therefore, a neutral article here will likely never be possible. Firejuggler86 (talk) 10:01, 14 November 2020 (UTC)